


Erastes and Eromenos

by narcissablaxk



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Character Death (Not any of our mains), Deception, Feelings Realization, Hannigram - Freeform, M/M, Manipulation, S2 Canon Divergence, Slow Burn, s2 fix it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:54:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25451239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcissablaxk/pseuds/narcissablaxk
Summary: Achilles wished all Greeks would die so he and Patroclus could conquer Troy alone. It took divine intervention to bring them down.Aeschylus, in his lost tragedy The Myrmidons (5th century BC), assigned Achilles the role of erastes or protector, (since he had avenged his lover’s death, even though the gods told him it would cost him his own life), and assigned Patroclus the roles of eromenos.But which of them is Achilles? It was impossible for Will to tell now.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure the S2 fix it has been done a thousand times, but here I am, beating a dead horse! I will add more tags as the story continues! Thanks for reading.

Will left the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane with a plan. He would walk willingly into the mouth of hell, down the steps that housed all sinners, until he reached the cold core of the place, where he would find Hannibal Lecter, lingering with the other treacherous men of history. He would chain him down to the frozen lake with Judas, Brutus, and Cassius, and then he would walk back out of hell, and he would refuse to look back. 

He did just that when he walked out of the hospital. He had been so sure his release was a fluke, so sure that the moment he stepped outside, he would be pulled back in again, sent back into his cell, or worse, strapped to the infernal transportation system they had used to take him to Beverley’s crime scene, his hands and feet chained, his face covered in a mask, like they were worried he was going to bite them.

He might bite them now.

It had taken him a while to figure out how he was going to get home – his car was in Wolf Trap, his wallet in his pocket, newly returned to him, had only a few spare dollars, and his cell phone had no battery after being left on until it died during the investigation. He supposed asking the FBI to charge his phone before they returned it was too much to ask. 

Once he figured that he would take a bus, because that was really one of his only options – Alana pulled up to the curb and rolled down the passenger side window. She was as beautiful as he remembered, but her eyes were ice cold, probably still angry at him for accusing Hannibal of multiple murders. Still, she was the only one there, so he slid into her passenger seat and let her drive away, hoping he was leaving some of his demons behind on the sidewalk. 

“I restocked your fridge,” she said after a long time. “Just some necessities. And I bought dog food and took your dogs back to your place.” 

“Thank you,” he replied softly, not knowing what else to say. When he had first asked Alana to look after his dogs, he had seen it as a symbol of trust, a placeholder for himself. When everything got cleared up, he would step into the part of her heart the dogs had opened up, and maybe she would welcome him when he got there. 

How different everything was now. 

“You still think –”

“We probably shouldn’t talk about that,” Will muttered, his eyes on the passing landscape, trying to warm himself under the cool appraisal of Alana’s gaze. 

“I think we should discuss it,” she replied firmly. 

He shifted his glasses higher on his nose. “I know that the psychiatric urge is to discuss something to death, but I’ve frankly had enough discussions for a long time.” He caught her frustrated breath out of the corner of his eye. “Unless, of course, you’re just hoping I’ll give you my blessing.” 

She went still. He felt a momentary perverse pleasure in her discomfort, even while waves of her embarrassment washed over him so strongly it was almost tangible. She didn’t say anything after that. 

He was out of the car before she put it into park when they pulled up to his home. He could hear the dogs inside, barking excitedly. He smiled in spite of himself, in spite of the situation, of the company. He had to wait for Alana to unlock the door, even longer for her to work his house key off of her key ring and pass it back to him. 

The dogs were on him in a second, panting and making excited noises that brought tears to his eyes. How he missed them, how he missed this house and his peace and solitude, chosen with care. He sat on the floor and let them walk over his legs, let them lick his face, and reached blindly for whoever he could reach. 

Alana was still there when he opened his eyes. He wasn’t sure what he hoped for; perhaps there was a lingering want for her to disappear while he hid behind a veil of his own making, so that when he opened his eyes again, the slate would be wiped clean – he would be left to wonder if she had ever been there in the first place. 

“They found Miriam Lass,” she said, and there was a significant tone to her voice that told Will he wasn’t about to like what she had to say. “Alive.” 

Dread settled over him, cold and still, and the dogs around him slowed and settled, overlapping each other over his extended legs. They were trying to be comforting, he realized with a jolt. They were trying to protect him. 

“That’s good,” he said finally, when Alana didn’t offer him anything else. 

“Jack had her listen to Hannibal, to try to identify him,” she pressed on, turning her gaze away from Will, to his empty fireplace. “She said it definitely wasn’t him.” 

He supposed she wouldn’t have bothered to pick him up in Baltimore if Hannibal had been somehow identified. Will shrugged and looked down at his dogs again, trying to mitigate the ugly feeling rising in his chest. It felt like poison slipping through his ribs, spreading until a feverish warmth was all he could feel. 

“Jack is going to be here soon,” she said when he didn’t speak. “He’s going to tell you about Miriam himself.” 

“I don’t need to see Jack,” Will dismissed, abruptly standing up, sending the dogs scattering. He listened to their nails on the floor and let it slowly puncture the vitriol inside of him. “I don’t need to talk about this with either of you.” 

“He wants you to look at the crime scene.” 

“Why?” Will asked, going back to the front door to force his shoes off, feeling the comfort of home suddenly, like he had a home field advantage. He smiled ironically at the idea of a sports metaphor. “Neither of you listen to what I have to say when it’s inconvenient for you.” 

“You tried to have him killed –”

“He framed me for _murder_ –”

“You don’t know that –”

“I would think that by this point, the boundaries of what I do and do not know are firmly defined,” Will snapped, turning away from her. “And when it comes to murderers, what I know vastly supersedes what _you_ know.”

When it comes to _him,_ he meant. 

He expected the offended silence that followed. 

“You really care about him so much that you’d completely disregard all of your instincts?” he pressed, turning back to her, catching her in the act of wiping a tear off her cheek. He felt a stab of guilt that was almost immediately eclipsed by anger. 

“How did you know?” she finally said, when the silence had gone on too long. 

He sighed, turning completely away from her again to move into the kitchen, to inspect what Alana had done while he was gone. The kitchen was clean, spotless, free of all the evidence markers and sticky remnants of tape and blood. The fridge was half-full, with fresh milk and eggs and fruit, a loaf of bread on the counter. All of it spoke of genuine care, heartfelt concern. It twisted at him, mocked him while it burrowed deep into his heart and stung like a thorn. 

She could still care this much and not care enough to listen. 

“You’re wearing his scarf,” he said finally, looking over his shoulder at her, at the deep maroon scarf around her neck. He remembered it well. Hannibal had put it over his own neck once, when they were standing out in the snow, observing a crime scene. He remembered vividly the smooth cashmere, the subtle, expensive cologne that followed it. He remembered looking up at Hannibal in the aftermath, catching nothing but an elusive half-smile in profile, realizing that he could have been carved from stone, if not for the softness of his eyes. 

He didn’t remember giving it back. But that was the reaction Hannibal was hoping to achieve. 

“You should go,” he said, and turned his attention to his dogs until he heard Alana’s retreating footsteps reach the door and fade away. 

***

In the end, Jack managed to convince him to visit Miriam’s crime scene, though Will hoped that it wasn’t so much a succumbing to persuasion as it was genuine curiosity to see what Hannibal had done this time to redirect the FBI. Because that’s exactly what he would do, Will knew it with a painful certainty. 

Because that’s what he would have done. 

The place was dank and filthy, so dirty that Will could hardly imagine Hannibal, with all his pressed three-piece suits and sharply defined lines, existing within fifty miles of this place. But that was the point, he reminded himself, glancing at all of the corners, full of jars and body parts, grisly and altogether put upon, like set dressing, and there was Hannibal’s fingerprint again. 

He was nothing if not dramatic. 

There was nothing honest about this space, he realized behind his closed eyes. There was no design here, no unconscious choices, no revealing details. He fluttered his eyes back open. 

“This was left here for you to find,” he said flatly to Jack, who cast his eyes about, clearly looking for a sign that displayed his name, proof that Will hadn’t lost his touch. “Somewhere in this room, you’ll find something that will lead you away from Hannibal Lecter.” 

He didn’t wait for Jack to press him for details or question his analysis outside. He shoved through everyone else, past crime scene tape, got into his car, and left. 

Why stay on a stage that wasn’t set for you? 

***

He was expecting Will to arrive; he knew him well enough that a confrontation far from Jack and Alana’s eyes was crucial – he would only be able to stay away for so long, but still, when the faint smell of Will’s aftershave reached him, overly woodsy and musky, cheap and altogether not right for Will Graham, he was surprised. 

“Same unfortunate aftershave,” he said, just to let Will know he knew he was there. He made sure both of his hands were visible on the outside of the fridge. He could smell the tang of metal. He knew there was a gun in the room. 

He let the door of the fridge drift closed, his eyes betraying his anxiety to see Will in one piece, outside of his cell. The barrel of the gun was aimed at his head, and even though he wasn’t surprised, didn’t blame him, the hurt still ached with each heartbeat. 

“I’m glad to see you,” he said honestly, because he couldn’t keep honesty from Will anymore, but Will just cocked the gun, and the hurt hardened to ice. He bit down on it, on the instinct to take the gun out of his hands, because it would be simple to do so, and he could see in Will’s eyes that he knew that too. Instead, he closed his eyes and turned so his neck was exposed. 

A gesture of submission. 

He heard Will’s sharp intake of breath at the movement, or perhaps the realization of what the movement meant. 

And then he heard the gun click, the sound of the trigger being pulled, the gun trying to expel a bullet that wasn’t in the chamber. He exhaled, full of relief and hope. And then he opened his eyes to an empty kitchen, the smell of Will’s aftershave still lingering even as the front door slammed shut in the distance. 

***

Will was relieved to find that he remembered his entire drive from Baltimore back to Wolf Trap. The trip seemed longer now, almost excruciatingly long now that he was aware of his surroundings, now that he wasn’t losing time. He allowed himself the indulgence of taking in the cold, wet wilderness around him, the familiar drive that had become unfamiliar in the time he had been gone. 

His gun was sitting on the passenger seat, the bottom empty. He hardly remembered making the choice to leave the clip in the car, his hands working before his brain could analyze the choice, his breath unsteady, nervous sweat starting at the base of his neck. Perhaps there was a part of him that thought Hannibal would easily wrestle the gun from him, would turn without a thought and shoot him in the leg, just enough to incapacitate him. 

But no, that wasn’t like him. He could almost see, as if the movie was playing itself on his windshield, Hannibal gently taking the gun from his hand, the way he’d done when Will was pointing the gun at Garrett Jacob Hobbs, who he knew now had been Abel Gideon.

He remembered very little of that night, but he remembered Hannibal’s hand on his neck, the other gently pulling his fingers away from the gun. He hadn’t considered Hannibal capable of that kind of softness. 

He supposed that if you were capable of horrific acts of cruelty, it would benefit you to appear to be tender.

He spent a long time sitting on the floor of his living room, in between all of his dogs’ beds, relishing in the knowledge that he was going to be covered in dog hair, in dog smell. He ran his hands over them in turn, careful to scratch between eager ears, to rub bellies, to give them all of the attention he hadn’t been able to give them while he was gone. 

He left the window open, the space heater on, content to occasionally shiver as long as he could breathe fresh air. 

He let his thoughts drift, finding it easier to flow along the current when he wasn’t in his cell, and found himself thinking of Abigail. It was always this way, her ghost sneaking up behind him and putting her arms around his neck when he least expected it. 

She had never put her arms around his neck when she was alive, and it was always that detail that made the rest of the imagining ring false. He couldn’t shake the falseness from it, couldn’t shake the sentimentality. He knew he was just thinking of her as he had wished she had been, as he wished _they_ had been. 

He had planned on teaching her how to fish, on letting her move into his house, far away from the prying eyes of the public, from Freddie Lounds’s constant pressures. He had planned so many things for her. 

For them. 

He hated letting his mind wander freely; it always brought him here, to Hannibal’s dining room table, with Abigail sitting across from him, Hannibal at the head of the table. The whole room smelled like comfort food, something that his mind could never really place, and the table never had plates on it, anyway, but the atmosphere was full of the nostalgic feel that he always associated with Christmas, with familial gatherings that he hadn’t experienced in too many years now. 

Abigail was always laughing, her head thrown back, the scar on her throat almost gone now, the darkness chased from her eyes. Hannibal was always smiling, like he had been the one to say something droll. He would turn his gaze to Will, and he would meet it, unafraid of what he would find. 

He always found warmth there, uncomplicated and spontaneous, and that was where the alarm bells started up again. Even when Hannibal looked at him with such contented softness Will couldn’t comprehend it, there was always a hint of the predator lingering behind it, a crouched tiger waiting for the signal. 

A quivering, rabbity knock shook him free of his memories and he looked up to find Chilton standing in the opaque shadow of his screen door, shivering in the cold. 

“It’s open,” he said, bemused. 

Chilton stepped through, holding a suitcase, covered in blood. Will wanted to be surprised, but somehow, it suddenly made sense. He was staring at Hannibal’s patsy. 

“Can I use the shower?” Chilton finally asked. 

Will didn’t answer, but tilted his head toward the hallway, watching Chilton as he lumbered off, shaken and probably in shock. He grinned, in spite of himself. He hadn’t expected Hannibal to be so…obvious. Perhaps that was where the beauty was – in its simplicity. Chilton had many of the same contacts as Hannibal, fit the same profile as Hannibal. If Hannibal was a suspect for those reasons alone, so was Chilton. 

And now, it seemed, he was covered in evidence that was being washed down Will’s drain. 

His plan hadn’t accounted for such an obvious patsy. But, he thought, dropping his hand to Winston’s head to scratch his ears, he could improvise. 

By the time Chilton was done in the shower (the man took a long one, considering the severity of his predicament), Will had cleaned the floor, where he had tracked in mud and more blood, the mop sitting at a downward angle over the sink, where he couldn’t be bothered to put it completely away. 

He was sitting at the table, the chair across from him pulled out for Chilton to sit in. 

He was too busy watching the road out the window for Jack’s car to listen to Chilton – he had gotten used to tuning him out while he was in the hospital. It was easy to listen to the rhythm of his speaking, the cadence of desperation, of begging, without hearing the words. The words didn’t matter. 

Chilton was an animal caught in a trap, and every predator in the woods could smell his blood. 

Will tried to ignore how much the idea thrilled him, but he could see his hand clenching and unclenching over his leg, a rhythmic movement that Chilton was soon watching with his eyes, clearly realizing his pleas for help were falling on deaf ears. 

When Jack’s car rumbled over the snow, Chilton bolted, leaving his suitcase behind in his haste, running awkwardly through the knee-deep snow. Will didn’t move, but stared at the chair across from him, now empty, a phantom filling it, leaning back and crossing his legs at the knee. 

He smiled, and the phantom across from him mirrored it. 

***

Hannibal was still thinking about the sound of the gun in Will’s hand, clicking over an empty chamber when someone knocked on his office door. He regretted, suddenly, not hiring a new secretary. It would be more efficient to have one, he reasoned on his way to the door. It would stop things like this from happening. He didn’t want to be disturbed –

Will was standing on the other side, turned half away from him, his hair cut, wearing the closest thing to a suit Hannibal had ever seen him wear – so handsome it knocked the air clean out of him for a moment. He turned to find Hannibal in the doorway, meeting his eyes boldly, his jacket folded over his arm, his button-up shirt rusty orange, a vision of autumn that warmed Hannibal from the inside. 

“Will –”

“I’d like to resume my therapy.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will is called to his first crime scene after being released from the hospital. He tries to lay a trap for Hannibal - while feeling rather like he isn't laying a trap after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story will be following a lot of the events in S2, but some small things will be changed for the sake of plot and shifting loyalties. This chapter is the first half(ish) of S2E8, Su-Zakana.

Will thought that eventually he’d get tired of the cold. When he first came to Wolf Trap, the cold excited him. Growing up in the South, where winters were mild summers, a true winter was an untouched canvas that he had never been able to reach before. He delighted in layering clothes, in tucking himself into blankets with space heaters. There was a misery in cold that he enjoyed – a death lingering just out of peripherals. 

Always there, pacing, waiting. 

He dreamed of Death that way too – the shadow image with antlers that bore Hannibal’s face. 

He thought of him now, sitting across from Jack Crawford, two twin fishing lines in a hole in the ice. He looked up at him for only a moment, eyes roving over his impassive face, looking for clues, for social cues, for information he could store until later. Jack was lost in his own thoughts, staring down at the slightly shifting water, just barely shivering. 

Will, on the other hand, felt warm. 

“You know, I see the appeal of Wolf Trap,” Jack said finally, breaking the silence. Will could only imagine it was because he felt the weight of Will’s gaze on his face. “In the summer.” 

Will allowed him a smile. “Trout are harder to catch when it’s cold,” he admitted. “The cold slows down their metabolism. They aren’t as hungry.” 

Jack’s eyes rose to meet his. Will quickly adverted his own, out of habit. Too often, he caught pity, or worry, in Jack’s eyes. It was a distracting emotion, pity, as was the resulting defensiveness that Will felt in the aftermath. He was so tired of being coddled, of being handled like fine china. 

“So how do you make them bite when they aren’t hungry?” 

Will felt a smile pulling at his jaw. “You use live bait. Give him something he can’t resist.” 

He heard Jack scoff, or maybe it was a genuine laugh. He couldn’t tell without looking up and seeing it, and he didn’t want to take the risk. It had taken considerable effort to get Jack to agree to let Will try to put himself on the hook, so to speak. Jack felt guilty, content to prostrate himself at the altar of forgiveness for Will, for Miriam Lass, for Beverly. He was carrying the weight of too many souls. 

The thought of adding Will’s body along with his soul to Justice’s scales was too high of a price. He wasn’t willing to pay it. 

“You force him to act on instinct,” Jack said finally, and Will could hear the begrudging respect in the timbre of his voice. “He’s always a predator.” 

That was as close as Jack would get to saying his name, no matter where they were. It was like he thought Hannibal was Beetlejuice, waiting to be summoned. If that were true, Will would have summoned him a thousand times over with just his thoughts. 

“I’m a good fisherman, Jack,” Will said, and both men looked down at the hole in the ice again, the unmoving lines a silent refutation. 

“You lure him, I’ll bag him,” Jack said softly. 

Will almost smiled. Lure him, Jack said, like it was that simple. He truly didn’t understand Hannibal Lecter if he thought it was just a matter of standing still long enough for your scent to be caught. No, it was so much more dangerous than that. 

And that was what made it fun.

He thought back to therapy – sitting across from Hannibal again, in the opulent office, listening to his carefully chosen words, watching his eyes obsessively, noting where his eyes strayed, where his eyes stayed. It was in the name of research, he told himself later. 

“Would you like to discuss your stay in the hospital?” Hannibal had asked delicately. Hospital, he’d said, like Will had gone in for routine tests, had stayed because of something innocuous, like appendicitis. 

“What would you like to discuss about my hospital stay, Dr. Lecter?” Will asked, his pointed question bringing the doctor’s gaze back to himself. Again, Hannibal’s eyes dropped down to his shirt, orange and expensive and definitely Hannibal’s style – and then came back up to meet his. 

“You tasked a man with killing me.” 

“I did,” Will said, leaning back in the chair. “Does that frighten you, doctor?” 

Hannibal allowed a quirk of his lips to slip through his façade. “He was unsuccessful.” 

“That doesn’t answer the question.” 

“I am not afraid of you, Will,” Hannibal said, like he was reassuring him.

No, Will thought, surveying Hannibal’s countenance while he wrote something down in his notebook. No, he wasn’t afraid of him. And he could say, truthfully, that he wasn’t afraid of Hannibal either. This image of sophisticated, refined, well-bred man gave him nothing to fear, though he knew it was all a façade. Beneath the perfectly tailored suits was the body of an apex predator, probably one of the most dangerous men in existence. 

And yet Will wasn’t afraid. 

***

They did end up catching a couple of trout – Will ended up catching a couple of trout, but he imagined Jack felt far more triumph in the capture than he, knowing that imminent warmth was in his future. They took the trout to Hannibal’s for dinner – must keep up appearances, Jack insisted – and met on the doorstep, Jack in much of the same clothes from earlier, minus a layer or two, Will dressed in clothes he knew Hannibal would find appealing – this time olive green on black. 

Jack’s eyes caught his hair, far more manageable now that he had gotten it cut, and traveled down all the way to his dress shoes. He raised his eyebrows. 

Will tried to ignore him. 

He watched Hannibal expertly cut the fish open, careless and careful all at once, nimble fingers and strong hands working while his eyes simply drank in the sight of the blood flowing over the counter. Will watched it too, both men standing in silence at Hannibal’s kitchen counter. Jack was standing in the dining room, on the phone with someone who demanded his attention.

“It is nice to see you at my table again,” Hannibal said, the comment almost lost among the sound of the food cooking. Will had to look up from where he had allowed himself to slip into a reverie to make sure he had heard correctly. 

“I missed it,” Will said, the statement not altogether untruthful. There was something about the casual efficiency of Hannibal Lecter’s kitchen and home that appealed to him, no matter what he knew of the home’s owner. He wondered if it had been decorated specifically to illicit that kind of reaction. Either way, Hannibal glanced over at him for a moment, the lines around his eyes softening, before he turned back to the fish. 

“Would you like to be sous chef?” he asked. 

Will raised his eyebrows at him. “You’d let me?” he asked. 

“What better way to dispel the rumors about what I serve at my table?” 

Something that burned like disappointment settled at the back of Will’s throat. Hannibal seemed to see something in his face, because he turned away again. 

“I’d always like to have you in my kitchen, Will.” 

Would being sous chef be too obvious of a placating gesture? Would it seem genuine? Will was momentarily at a loss. And then he realized why he was at a loss – he actually wanted to participate. He was so curious about what went on in Hannibal’s kitchen, both as a profiler and as a dinner guest, that the possibility of standing beside him and seeing what he did was almost more than his natural curiosity could bear. 

He started unbuttoning the sleeves of his shirt to roll them up. “What do you want me to do?” 

Hannibal’s discerning eyes landed on the sleeve of Will’s shirt as he rolled it, content to observe. When he was finished, he passed him a knife, handle angled at Will, polite as always. Just beyond the gleam of the blade, Will could see the still new scars on Hannibal’s wrists. Scars imprinted in his skin forever because of his anger, because of Hannibal’s betrayal.

He glanced up at Hannibal and caught his gaze, burning and warm and omniscient. He didn’t look away.

***

He was still thinking of that scar when he walked up to the crime scene the next morning, his breath frosting on the cold air in front of him. He couldn’t decide what he felt when he saw the pale, puckered, raised skin of Hannibal’s wrists, the veins standing out in sharp relief against them. 

That was exactly the problem when it came to Hannibal – the moment Will thought he could identify that what he felt was pride, it was immediately eclipsed by something that ached kind of like guilt. It was a mixed cocktail of confusing ideas, and the moment he put his finger on one, the rest started to skitter away. 

“I agree with the pagans,” Hannibal’s voice came to him before he managed to even see the crime scene. “The horse is divine. All beasts of burden are sacred animals.” 

A thought came thundering to the front of Will’s mind – _humans are not considered beasts of burden._

When he at last took in the scene before him – the horse, innards spilling over the stall floor, covered in straw and dirt, the naked woman tangled in it, slippery and looking thoroughly reborn, Jack had already made his way to his side and was lingering there, the way Will always imagined those little shoulder angels and demons did. 

Hannibal passed him a thermos, warm to the touch, sparing him only a glance before he looked back down at the horse’s open black eyes, liquid in the dim light of the barn, moving toward the opposite side of the stall. Will remembered, suddenly, the scarf around Alana’s neck. He looked down at the thermos. It was an unspoken but unmistakable invitation to drink the contents. 

He poured some of it into the little cup top, sniffing inconspicuously as Jack, Hannibal, and Jimmy Price discussed the viability of the horse’s womb. 

Hot chocolate, spiced with chili. He took a sip, aware of Hannibal’s eyes leaving the corpses on the ground to find him, horse, innards, and dead woman between them. Not unlike sitting at Hannibal’s dining table. 

“Victim was deceased before she was enwombed,” Zeller said, bright light shining down on the dead woman’s neck. “Ecchymosis of the subcutaneous tissue is consistent –”

“She was strangled,” Price interrupted, dodging Zeller’s piercing glare. In doing so, he looked past his partner and up at Will, standing at the edge of the stall, watching them all. Immediately, he averted his eyes. 

He hadn’t expected Price and Zeller to necessarily welcome him back into the fold – in fact, he wasn’t supposed to be part of the fold at all. Jack had sent him a text once he heard that there was a dead woman inside a horse, but he hadn’t necessarily told him to show up. He just had. 

“The horse is a chrysalis, a cocoon meant to hold the young woman until her death can be transformed,” Hannibal’s voice pulled Price and Zeller back into their jobs, and Will was grateful. He was tired of suffering under scrutiny. 

“Transformed into what?” Jack asked, and he was looking to Hannibal for the answer, not at Will. _Too eager, _Will wanted to tell him. _You look far too eager to please.___

__“A new life,” he said, and Hannibal deferred to him, looking back down at the woman. “This is supposed to be a birth.”_ _

__“Then what’s the thinking?” Jack asked, and he was doing that _thing_ again, where he pressed Will to provide him with more than he already had. It was typical of Jack – taking and taking and taking until there was nothing left, until Will was spent and shivering, ghosts rattling around behind his eyes. He pushed until he got the answer he wanted, and if that wasn’t the right answer, he’d press harder, as if it was Will’s fault that the killer thought this way. _ _

__“He took her life and then tried to give it back to her,” he said woodenly, taking another sip of the hot chocolate in his hand to try to give his voice more life. “Whoever did this knew the horse. Knew why she was dying. He knew the victim.” He glanced around, at the other stalls, the other horses, hooded and probably painfully aware that one of their own was lying dead beside them._ _

__“He works here, or did work here, so he knew when he wouldn’t get caught. He has medical knowledge of animals, but he isn’t a vet.”_ _

__He looked down at the horse again, down at the woman._ _

__“Mother and daughter are now on the same side of life. This is grief.”_ _

__His mind produced an image of Abigail. Of her neck, spurting blood, ugly and undignified and far too much. Still, she didn’t move, but stared at Will with her wide, blue eyes. He stared into them, knowing that she wasn’t real, that she wasn’t here with him. He had nothing to fear from looking in her eyes. There was nothing she could find in his this way._ _

__He stared, contemplating, looking for that girl he knew. The one he mourned when he was alone, the one he imagined fishing with. He found nothing in her eyes, nothing of that familiarity. She was looking at him with concern, with fear._ _

__The same way she looked at him when he took her to Minnesota for the last time._ _

__She was a stranger._ _

__“Will?”_ _

__It was Hannibal’s hand on his shoulder that pulled him back to the stables, not his voice, but he jumped just the same, almost spilling hot chocolate down his hand. Hannibal gently took the thermos from his other hand._ _

__“Where did you go?” he asked._ _

__“To see Abigail.”_ _

__A look of momentary guilt skittered over Hannibal’s features before he could school them back into his impenetrable mask. _Good,_ Will thought savagely. Before he could say anything else, Jack sidled in between them and passed Will a file. He flipped it open, scanning the top line. _ _

__Peter Bernardone._ _

__“Stable hand,” Jack supplied. “Kicked in the head by a horse.”_ _

__“That horse?”_ _

__Jack shrugged, like it didn’t matter. “We’re going to go talk to him,” he said. He turned his gaze to Hannibal. “Will you join us, Dr. Lecter?”_ _

__Hannibal gave him an inscrutable shake of the head. “I’m afraid I have my first patient in only a few hours, so I must be going. Thank you for having me consult, Agent Crawford.”_ _

__“Thank you for taking the time.”_ _

__Will stared at Jack long after Hannibal was gone, the top of the thermos somehow gone from his hand when he wasn’t paying attention. “Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you?” he hissed._ _

__“Ask your haircut and Queer Eye makeover,” Jack sniped back, but there was considerably less heat in the rebuke than usual. “I’m just trying to be polite.”_ _

__“You’re not usually polite,” Will muttered, turning his eyes back to the file. “Does he still work here?”_ _

__***_ _

__Peter Bernardone was an interesting person. Will found himself drawn to the man in the same way he’d initially felt drawn to Abigail. Here was a man who was harmed severely by a horse who still worked with animals every day and did not hold the horse responsible. It was forgiveness on such a scale that Will could hardly fathom it, and he found himself wading through his thoughts as much as Peter’s while the man was talking._ _

__He looked at Peter, surrounded by birds in cages, other animals that he tenderly cared for, and saw himself, surrounded by stray dogs. He had been watching Peter closely when Jack’s phone rang, and had been so caught up in the soothing motions of Peter’s hand on the back of a small bird that he missed what Jack was saying._ _

__“They found a what in her chest?”_ _

__Peter’s hand on the bird in the cage stilled; Will watched him carefully extricate himself and close the cage, double checking to make sure it was done correctly._ _

__“I’m worried about the bird,” he’d finally said._ _

__“A woman is dead, Mr. Bernardone, and you’re worried about a bird,” Jack said, and underneath the disbelief there was a hint of tried patience, the way an exhausted teacher would speak to a misbehaving child._ _

__“I can’t do anything to help her, or the horse, but the bird is still alive,” Peter said, and Will understood._ _

__“I don’t know if he’s the killer, Jack,” he said in the car later. “But if he is, he never meant to be. If he isn’t, he knows who is.”_ _

__***_ _

__The day had been long – so long that by the time he found himself in Dr. Lecter’s office, sitting across from him, Will’s patience had long run out. He spent the whole day thinking about Peter Bernardone; thinking about his concern for the living bird and lack of concern for any of the dead. It struck him, initially, as a pragmatic view, but now, after staring at icy roads for hours on his drive to Baltimore, after thinking again about Abigail, about the man who killed her – the same man who gently put a scarf around Will’s neck when he was cold and gave him hot chocolate to ward off chill after framing him for multiple murders – he was stuck in a cycle he couldn’t pull himself out of._ _

__Do you accept the living for who and what they are, or do you hold them accountable for the dead ones you couldn’t save?_ _

__Which one of those choices is the pragmatic one? Which one of those is a moral choice?_ _

__It was getting harder and harder to find true north where his moral compass was concerned._ _

__“How does it feel consulting again with Jack Crawford and the FBI?” Hannibal asked, in that delicate way that told Will he was about to say something upsetting. “Last time, it almost destroyed you.”_ _

__“Last time _you_ almost destroyed me.” _ _

__Hannibal’s face hesitated slightly, yet another vague way he expressed hurt, and Will felt, momentarily, confused. After months of setting up an intricate dominoes display, here was Hannibal showing pain for a plan well-executed._ _

__“After everything that’s happened, you still believe –” he said with a sigh._ _

__“You can stop there,” Will interrupted. “You may have to pretend, but I don’t.”_ _

__It came out softer than he intended, but Hannibal, across from him, relaxed deeper into his chair, and Will could almost see the mask slipping, the predator beneath. He looked pleased._ _

__“No, you don’t,” he agreed. “Not with me.”_ _

__“I prefer sins of omission to outright lies, Doctor,” he continued, watching Hannibal’s face closely for any reaction. Still, the mask lingered, half on and half off, and Will felt distinctly like he was looking into the eyes of the Devil. Or perhaps Hannibal was. “Don’t lie to me.”_ _

__“Will you return the favor?” Hannibal asked, and the mask slipped even lower, the dim light casting shadows over Hannibal’s eyes, darkening them. “Why have you resumed your therapy?”_ _

__Will considered lying outright. He couldn’t very well say that he was here to bait Hannibal into putting himself on Jack’s hook to be caught._ _

__Sins of omission._ _

__“Can’t just tell any psychiatrist about what’s kicking around in my head,” he said nonchalantly._ _

__Hannibal leaned forward, as if to put Will into better focus, his eyes pinning him to the chair. No matter which shade of lie, Will felt like Hannibal was reading him, like a willing, open book._ _

__“Do you still fantasize about killing me?”_ _

__“Yes.” The word slipped out of his mouth on a breath, unbidden. Hannibal leaned back, a smirk passing over his visage before it disappeared. Will’s eyes followed it out._ _

__“How would you do it?”_ _

__He wanted to lean forward, to mirror Hannibal’s movement. But that would be too eager, wouldn’t it? That would be too inviting, too…his mind lingered on the word flirtatious, but he hesitated to even think it. It was an inappropriate choice._ _

__In the end, he leaned forward anyway, just enough that Hannibal’s eyes refocused on him, watching him even closer than before._ _

__“With my hands.”_ _

__Hannibal didn’t smile, but Will could see the smile in his eyes, something that looked like pride. He drank it in, feeling similarly to how he felt whenever he answered a question right in school, or when his father patted him on the shoulder after he fixed a motor correctly. It was the glow of praise, even though Hannibal hadn’t said anything at all._ _

__He didn’t have to._ _

__“Then we haven’t moved past apologies and forgiveness,” Hannibal said._ _

__“We’ve moved past a lot of things,” Will pointed out. “I discovered a truth about myself when I tried to have you killed.”_ _

__He was supposed to be setting the lines for the beginnings of the trap, supposed to be luring Hannibal in, but here he paused, thinking of what to say. He knew what he had planned to say, but he had expected it to feel like a lie – to feel like deception. But it didn’t, and now he kept the words prisoner in his mouth._ _

__“That doing bad things to bad people makes you feel good?”_ _

__“Yes.”_ _

__Hannibal’s eyes glittered across the way, but he still managed to make his voice sound even. “I need to know if you’re going to try to kill me again.”_ _

__“Oh, I don’t want to kill you, Dr. Lecter,” Will said, letting the words curl his lips into a smile. “Not now that I finally find you interesting.”_ _

__The smile he got from the man across from him could only be described as warm._ _


End file.
